Seeing it there at the sign of East Main St. in the city’s downtown core kind of reminds me of something you’d see in a northern wilderness town — you know, the kind that’s only accessible by paddling along a river.

After all, where else would you expect to find a canoe parked outside town hall?

But the impressive Welland Civic Square is a far cry from a log cabin in a remote fur-trader village, and the canoe set up on display there certainly doesn’t look like it’s been paddled in a while.

It’s much too shiny to have been plying through the silty water of the Welland River.

The canoe is adorned with images — silhouettes of athletes set against a background of blue water churned up by their paddles and oars. It was painted last spring by local mural artist Darlene Kisur-dePagter.

And it’s a sign of things to come in the city.

Welland’s 30-year-old murals may be fading, but outdoor public artwork in the city seems to be having a resurgence.

The canoe was the first in a series being created as part of the Canoe Art Project, an initiative by the city’s arts and culture advisory committee and Welland Recreational Canal Corp., now with funding from the 2015 Pan Am Games IGNITE program.

By next summer, the committee members hope to recruit enough local artists to transform as many as 20 donated canoes into works of art to be displayed throughout Welland.

Since the project began at the start of this year, the committee currently has five completed canoes. And in the days ahead, another of those canoes is expected to be put on display beside the Canal Terrace on King St.

In addition to the canoe at city hall, there’s also a canoe with a graffiti-style image of Main Street Bridge painted on it, a canoe covered in images of Welland’s marine history, one covered with roses and another with paddles decorating it.

There are four more canoes in development, and the committee is actively looking for artists interested in submitting designs for the remaining 11 canoes.

More information about submitting designs for the Canoe Art Project is available online at www.canalcorp.ca.

In their prime, Welland’s murals were an impressive eye-catching addition to the city. Many of them still are, and the arts and culture committee is developing a plan to keep them that way.

But the canoes have even more potential as displays of public art.

They’re unique.

Sure, people have been decorating their canoes with artistic designs since Aboriginal North Americans were using them to travel through the wilderness hundreds or thousands of years ago, but I have never seen them used to decorate a community in the same way Welland is doing.

It’s unlikely they’ll last as long as the murals — especially if they’re left outdoors and not maintained.

But unlike the murals, the canoes probably won’t pose any long-term problems.

They’re inexpensive enough to replace if they’re defaced or deteriorate. And they will likely remain on city property, leaving no question about who will have responsibility for them.